


No sympathy

by Builder



Series: Spiderverse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Peter's way too dedicated to the Stark internship, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 10:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12431109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: Peter's overly dedicated to his Stark internship.  He also doesn't know that suppressing sympathy puke is part of the required skill set.





	No sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on a roll! Two Spiderman fics in three days!
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @Builder051. Always taking prompts!

Ned’s texted Peter four times in the last hour.  He’s as dead-set on inviting Peter to do something for Halloween as Peter is dead-set on saying no.

 

“Geez, how many times do I have to tell you,” Peter mumbles as he taps out another reply.  __I’m busy. Stark internship.  Already told you.__

 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go trick-or-treating in Ned’s building.  To be honest, he kind of does. There’s that one neighbor that gives out full-size KitKats, and he has the best costume.  And it’s not even a costume, it’s, like, his work uniform…  But there are way more important things to do. 

 

If urban legends and underground news reports are anything to go by, Peter has dozens of black kittens to save from satanic sacrifice and chocolate-stealing thugs to beat up and kids to help cross the street and baskets of candy to check for broken glass and LSD…  With that agenda, goofing off on Halloween doesn’t stand a chance of making it onto the timetable.

 

Peter turns his phone upside-down on the desk so it won’t glow at him when Ned inevitably texts back. Again.  He rests his elbow on his partially-finished algebra homework and drops his forehead into his palm for a moment, until he remembers he shouldn’t do that because it’ll give him acne.  But cool-hand-on-achy-forehead kind of feels good, so maybe it’s a wash. 

 

The sun’s falling into its late afternoon position, warning that dusk is near.  And that people with headaches should close their blinds to avoid being shot in the eyeballs with extreme sunset glare.  Peter doesn’t think the blinds on his window have worked since he moved in, so he splits the difference and pushes out of his desk chair to head for the kitchen. 

 

May’s working late, so Peter’s on his own tonight.  She’s given him free reign to do whatever he wants to celebrate as long as it’s legal and he’ll be ready for school tomorrow.  Usually Peter would be ecstatic about the breadth of his freedom, but today he’s just glad he’s alone so he can dry-swallow three ibuprofen and eat cheese shreds straight from the bag. 

 

With hunger taken care of and medication yet to kick in, Peter checks his watch.  The neighborhood won’t start bustling with Halloweeners for another couple of hours.  His homework’s as good as finished; no one will show up with completed math assignments tomorrow morning.  Peter doesn’t feel like giving the school population at large another reason to call him a geek.  And he doesn’t feel like he’ll be able to concentrate especially well anyway. 

 

Flicking on the TV to a random rerun of __The Simpsons__ , Peter flops down on the couch.  He intends to hang through the 30-minute episode, then put on his suit and jump through the window to start his patrol.  But somehow Peter blinks and the TV’s playing Hocus Pocus and it’s dark out and he’s missed something.  Like two hours of passing time.

 

“Fuck,” Peter curses himself, jumping to his feet as realizations of the date, time, and fact that he’s not feeling well all crash into his head.  He tornadoes into his room and strips, almost tripping over his jeans as he tries to scramble into his suit.  He’s groggy and his reflexes suck.  The logical voice in his head, the one that’s usually reminding him to do his homework, tells him this is not smart.  He should think about staying in tonight.  Or hit up Ned for something safer to do.  But the louder __impress Mr. Stark__ and __justice for Ben__ voice makes him keep going.

 

Peter throws his jeans and hoodie into his backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and tosses back the blinds to open his bedroom window.  He crawls up onto the small ledge of the sill and shoots a line of web to the next building over. 

 

He swings to his usual hiding spot in an alley near the school building and drops his backpack behind a dumpster.  Everything seems to smell worse than usual, and it’s not helping Peter’s head.  Or his stomach, for that matter.

 

“Ok.  Here we go.”  Peter revs himself up.  He jumps on top of the dumpster and swings himself onto the roof the bodega to survey the streets from above.  A few people in costumes are running around, and there’s a pretty comical looking group of small-scale Power Rangers standing on a street corner, but beyond that, everything looks normal.  There aren’t any black-robed Satanists brandishing bloody knives or kids dropping to their knees from poisoned candy.  At least not that Peter can see. 

 

He sits down on the edge of the roof and watches for a while, then webs himself two blocks over to get a different view.  A couple taxis honk at each other.  Some guy re-lights the jack-o-lantern on his balcony three separate times because the wind keeps blowing it out. 

 

Peter rolls his mask up to his nose so he can catch a little bit of the autumn breeze.  It feels nice, especially seeing as the pressure of the tight spandex over his face is doing little to make him comfortable.  It’s actually making him pretty uncomfortable.  The throb that was just between his eyes earlier is now playing across his whole forehead.  And his stomach’s starting to feel frothy, like it’s full of shaving cream.

 

There’s a sound coming from the sidewalk on the other side of the building.  Not of someone in peril, more of sound of frustration.  But with the lack of anything else going on, Peter decides it’s his business to investigate anyway.  He looks over the vertical line of brick wall and sees what he thinks is a scruffy homeless man lounging on a dirty bedroll and a stroller-pushing woman expressing disdain that he’s blocking the sidewalk.

 

It’s not the large-scale, Halloween-themed rescue mission Peter’s been expecting, but he knows how to diffuse this bomb.  He puts his mask back down and jumps to street level.  The impact reverberates from his feet to his head, and Peter tries not to cringe as the headache flares into momentary vertigo.

 

“Ma’am, he’s not gonna hurt you,” Peter says, addressing the gum-chewing young mother first.  A candy bucket for her sleepy baby clad in a skeleton onesie is slung over the stroller’s handle.  Peter imagines she’s really trick-or-treating for herself.

 

“Yeah, but he’s blocking the sidewalk,” she complains.

 

“I know, I got it,” Peter placates her.  He bends at the waist to tap the man on the shoulder.  He’ looks like he could be dozing, and he has a smoldering pipe held up to his lips.  The fumes coming from it smell a bit more illegal than just tobacco.  “Hey, dude?”  He says.  “You can’t sleep here.  People want to walk here.”

 

“Hm?” the guy says, exhaling a cloud of smoke and looking quizzically at Peter’s masked face.  “What’re you supposed to be dressed up as?”

 

“Hi, I’m Spiderman,” Peter introduces himself.  He holds out his hand, and when the guy shakes it, Peter puts his other hand into the guy’s armpit and pulls him to his feet.  “There’s an alley right up here where you can be without being in everybody’s way.”

 

The guy fumbles so as not to drop his pipe, but doesn’t resist Peter walking him ten yards down and depositing him around the corner between a trash can and a drainpipe.  “I’ll go get your sleeping bag,” Peter promises, hustling back the way he came. 

 

The young mom is already gone when Peter dashes back around the corner to grab the filthy bedroll.  He shakes it hard over the ground, muttering, “Could’ve at least stuck around to say thanks.”  Once most of the dust and stray flecks of weed are lost to the sidewalk, Peter re-traces his steps again. 

 

The homeless man is braced against the wall and losing what sounds and smells like a full stomach of liquor.  “Oh, god,” Peter cries in surprise, turning his head away as soon as he realizes what’s happening. “Ok.  Um.  Yeah.”  He sloppily folds the sleeping bag into a rectangle with too many corners and sets it on the ground.  He can feel his own stomach asking to rebel, and his headache’s screaming a whole new tune.  “I’m not the one to help you with this.”  Peter’s mouth is full of spit.  “There’s a shelter with rehab stuff down on 35th by Steinway…”

 

The guy just pukes again, and Peter turns around to stumble out of the alley on shaky legs.  He swallows hard.  Vertigo threatens to take him down, and Peter leans against the cool brick wall.  He can hear blood pounding in his ears, but it doesn’t drown out the homeless man’s next retch.  That’s all that’s needed to send Peter over the edge, and he has to scramble to flip his mask up fast enough. 

 

He heaves a couple times and watches dazedly as a small puddle of thick whitish spit forms between his boots.  His stomach empties before it settles, and Peter leans heavily into the wall.  He wipes away a moustache of sweat with the back of his gloved hand.  The spandex fabric still carries notes of the homeless man’s smoke and BO, and Peter almost goes down retching again.  But he just coughs and gasps for a moment before deciding he has to get out of here before he becomes a Halloween disaster himself.

 

Peter starts the stroll back around the block to pick up his backpack, feeling too dizzy to web himself around.  He briefly clocks in for another good deed and helps a couple third-grade ninjas cross the street, but practically undoes it when a yellow cab almost slams him on his way back across.  Peter halfheartedly flips the driver off and continues on his way to grab his stuff.

 

After struggling to pull his jeans over his suit, Peter zips up his hoodie and stows his gloves and mask.  He realizes he forgot to pack shoes, so he just has to hope his Spiderman boots won’t be noticeable.

 

Peter enters his building through the front door and pauses for a moment while he considers the choice of stairs or elevator.  He goes for the stairs, and even though his quads are burning by the time he reaches his floor, at least his head is still on his shoulders.

 

Light’s streaming from under the door when Peter approaches the apartment, and that can only mean that May’s home.  He tries to think up a good, believable story for what he’s been up to, but nothing comes easily, and he’s eager to get inside and shower and go to sleep.  Or maybe vomit his slimy guts out for the next millennium. 

 

“Hey, May,” Peter says as he pushes open the door. 

 

“Hey yourself,” May says.  She’s on the couch, eating popcorn and watching __It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.__   “You do stuff?  Have a good time?”

 

“Yeah, just, uh,” Peter starts, “Ran around with Ned for a while.”

 

“Great costume,” May says, nodding to Peter’s getup.

 

“Thanks,” he replies absently.

 

“That wasn’t…” May trails off and starts over.  “What’re you supposed to be?”

 

“Um.”  Peter looks down at his rumpled hoodie and finally understands.  He scrubs his scrambled brain for an answer.  “Um.  Dead tired?”

 

“Dead tired,” May repeats.  “Well, you’re doing a fantastic job with that.  You look awful.”

 

“Yeah, I’m not feeling all that great, so I thought it would be kind of appropriate,” Peter says in a mixture of truth and joke.

 

“Would you happen to not feel great because you ate all my cheese shreds?  And now I can’t make lasagna for tomorrow night?”

 

“Sorry, May,” Peter says, passing his hand over his forehead, which is beading with fresh nauseous sweat. He almost starts to unzip his hoodie, but stops himself before he reveals what he’s wearing underneath. 

 

“Want some popcorn?  There’s candy corn, too.” May asks, inviting him to join her in front of the TV.  “We got plenty of that.  Could have snacks for dinner all week.”

 

Peter’s stomach rolls, and he has to swallow hard to push down the rising bile.  “You know, uh, I’m not sure I’m really in the mood to talk about food right now.”  He starts down the hall toward the bathroom.

 

“You do feel sick, huh?  You think you need help or anything?”  May makes to stand up.

 

“No, I’ll be ok,” Peter insists.  “Just, uh, maybe don’t eat all the candy corn.  I might want some.”  He suppresses a gag.  “But, probably not till later.”


End file.
